Cities: A Guide for All Role-Playing Games, 2nd Edition

An expanded version of the 1st edition, with new art, more encounters, and guidlines on personalizing the information for a referee's own campaign. "Right off the top, we recommend the Gamesmaster run no more than three, and preferably one or two, players at a time in cities. With three or more, someone is always growing bored while the Gamesmaster and some other player are haggling prices, gambling, looking for work, etc. These tables are designed to be used every ten to fifteen minutes of real time (or more often if things are lagging). "No Encounter" is built into the table to reflect the likely frequency of nothing of note occurring near or to the players' Characters in a particular area of the city. A larger number of encounters will be visual, not directly involving the Characters, unless they decide to join in. We recommend that if the players are involved in something, the Gamesmaster shouldn't interfere (too much) by throwing encounters at them. A significant number of encounters read, "...accidental bump...". This represents the jostling a Character would receive in a crowded street. This teaches players not to attack everyone on sight and keeps thieves from being quite so conspicuous. Another frequent encounter is "....recognises Character.. .mistakenly.. .correctly." This is where a non-player Character (NPC) either thinks he or she knows the Character or did in fact know him previously (even if the player doesn't "remember"). It could be an old buddy, sweetheart, rival, employer, slave, sidekick, or anyone else the Gamesmaster can think of, from somewhere in the Character's past. Or, the NPC could be mistaken, but convince the player they once knew each other. Or... As you can see, the possibilities are many..."